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Do you think the 2020 iMac models will come with 16GB RAM standard?

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Spungoflex

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 30, 2012
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The iMac line has come standard with 8GB since 2012... that’s 8 years!

Do you think 2020 is finally the year that 16GB becomes standard?

The 16” MacBook Pro comes standard with 16GB.

The iMac Pro and the Mac Pro both come standard with 32GB.

What say you?
 
That would be great, however, I doubt it. Hope they shock me. I almost treated myself to a new one for Christmas, but decided to stay strong for a better forecast. Either way, I plan to buy my own 32GB kit.
 
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Why do you think that there will even be a 2020 iMac? I hope you're right but Apple has let the iMac line stay as is for 18 months to 2 years. And as long as the 27" iMac has user installable memory, I doubt we'll see a big boost in what Apple provides.
 
I believe they could come with 16 GB RAM as default if Apple will use current iMac Pro chassis and thermal design (so RAM wouldn't be user upgradable anymore) for 202X redesign of iMac.
 
Spungoflex said:
The iMac line has come standard with 8GB since 2012... that’s 8 years!

Do you think 2020 is finally the year that 16GB becomes standard?

The 16” MacBook Pro comes standard with 16GB.

The iMac Pro and the Mac Pro both come standard with 32GB.

What say you?
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If the RAM is still user-upgradeable, I hope it doesn't. The 16 GB would likely raise the price higher than buying additional RAM yourself.
 
mreg376 said:
If the RAM is still user-upgradeable, I hope it doesn't. The 16 GB would likely raise the price higher than buying additional RAM yourself.
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If Apple plans to increase the price of the base model iMac, it won't have anything to do with adding additional RAM. Base model prices are usually increased after a redesign and/or bump in screen resolution (introduction of "retina" displays). RAM, hard drive space, and CPU power are things that traditionally increase over time at the same price point.
 
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Why wouldn't there be? Intel 10900K cpu is coming out soon. I wouldn't expect anything other than the current design with the 10th gen desktop intel in it though.
 
Because the last iMac models had really long updates - both 2015-2017, and 2017-2019 took over 600 days to update.


I'm not sure if Apple is willing to make an incremental change now since a redesign is really in order. But I might be wrong, it does seem likely that they will just push out a spec bump, and try to make an ARM, or a completely redesigned iMac later, when it's done basically.
 
It better damn still be upgradable in future 27 inch iMacs. If it is still upgradable, 8GB vs 16GB really does not matter that much when RAM sticks are so reasonably priced nowadays and it is so straightforward to add RAM using the rear access door.

Apple's RAM upgrade prices have absolutely no justification and just serve to increase their profit margin further.
 
IMO it doesn't matter for the 27” since the ram is easily user upgradable. Where it matters in the 21.5” since it isn’t. The bigger issue is why Apple still sells non ssd systems! At minimum fusion setups should be standard. While not everyone benefits going from 8 to 16gb of ram, everyone would benefit in at least having a Fusion drive.
 
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If they do, expect a corresponding increase in base price. Actually a worse deal if they keep the user upgradable RAM on the larger model, but maybe making everyone pay for 16 anyway will be how they justify keeping the RAM door.
 
Apple's priority is to extend the T2 (or eventual T3) chip across all its products, which means they need to first "upgrade" the fusion to SSD before anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if it's an incremental upgrade to eliminate spinning hard drives first while maintaining the same price point they use for the education community.

However, if they increase the screen real estate, that would be for me the most tempting upgrade over anything else.
 
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I doubt it. Most people don’t need 16GB of RAM.
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Who's this 'most' people you talk of? My totally skewed set of Mac user friends all have 16GB and many, like me, are complaining they need more now.
 
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The average user, who does not have the machine as a production tool. That is most people who own Macs.
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I would personally argue that that is an assumption and not a known fact; which is the issue of blanket statements. The truth of the matter is that, in absentia of hard facts, we can't go around stating something is true when it's all based upon hunches, guesses and assumptions.

I personally have zero clue, however I'm going to assume that most home users don't need more than 8GB.

However I also don't know what the proportion of home users there are to pro users such as myself. Ergo I cannot make the blanket assumption of "most people".

In addition I'd argue that the iMac 27" is positioned as a Prosumer device, nestled in between the consumer 21" iMac and the serious iMac Pro. This being the case I would argue that 16GB minimum would make sense for that version.
 
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TiggrToo said:
I personally have zero clue, however I'm going to assume that most home users don't need more than 8GB.
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Home users and office users make up the majority of Mac operators. Neither typically need more than 8GB of RAM.
 
tomwilson said:
Why wouldn't there be? Intel 10900K cpu is coming out soon. I wouldn't expect anything other than the current design with the 10th gen desktop intel in it though.
Click to expand...

From what I’ve seen, the Intel 10th gen chips that have been released so far are very underwhelming.
||\|| said:
Home users and office users make up the majority of Mac operators. Neither typically need more than 8GB of RAM.
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How long does the average iMac user keep their computer? Remember, 4GB was perfectly fine... until it wasn’t. I’d say 8GB is *just barely* enough today for the average user. 3 years from now (after 3 new macOS updates), maybe not.

I would not recommend any user buy the 4K iMac with anything less than 16GB of RAM. There’s a good chance you are setting yourself up for a terribly frustrating user experience capped at 8GB in 3 years.
 
I would be willing to buy RAM from Apple directly, instead of fitting in my own, if it means they will put the iMac Pro cooling system in the new iMac, but I really doubt that will happen.
 
Spungoflex said:
How long does the average iMac user keep their computer? Remember, 4GB was perfectly fine... until it wasn’t. I’d say 8GB is *just barely* enough today for the average user. 3 years from now (after 3 new macOS updates), maybe not.
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That is not the trend as I have seen it. Currently, I use 10.8.5 at work, 10.11.6 and 10.14.6 at home. The RAM foot print since 2012 at idle is less than 1GB, and between 10.11 and 10.14, it’s a matter of 100s of megabytes. Depending on background processes, YMMV. 8 is probably going to be fine for quite a while.
 
Does anyone notice an appreciable improvement in performance by adding RAM? I've asked a few friends that have added RAM and they can't tell a difference. My 2010 iMac only has the original 4 gig of RAM but it's definitely showing it's age these days.
 
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